Thomas Mann on the modern GOP

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

As i posted yesterday, one of the high priests of Beltway centrism, political scientist Norman
Ornstein, has been ringing the warning bell about the radicalism of the
modern Republican Party for a couple of years now as well. Ornstein's
latest warning in The Atlantic is The Republican Hardliners Aren’t Conservatives, They’re Radicals.

Ornstein's frequent collaborator and high priest of Beltway centrism, Thomas Mann, writes in a CNN opinion, GOP House can't claim to speak for America:

One talking point frequently used by Republicans to justify shutting
down the government while trying to overturn the Affordable Care Act is
that the House and its Republican majority are more representative of
Americans' views than President Barack Obama and the Democratic Senate.

That is preposterous and beside the point.

The ACA is law. End of
story. The House Republicans' attempt to nullify a duly-enacted law
violates the norms of our constitutional system. It is reckless
economically and an egregious affront to our democratic form of
government.

House Republicans have
every right to press their views in Congress but not to threaten to blow
up the U.S. and global economy by shutting down the government and
threatening public default.

We have elections for all
three key players — the president, the House and the Senate. If
Republicans want to change the law, they must do it the old-fashioned
way: Persuade the others to accept their position or win control of the
White House and Senate.

House Republicans lost
ground in the 2012 elections, lost the national vote for the House by
over a million votes and retained a majority only because of favorable
districting.

Obama won re-election by
3.9 percentage points and got an overwhelming victory in the Electoral
College. Senate Democrats retained their majority despite having to
defend more than twice as many seats as the Republicans.

House Republicans
represent a distinct minority of public sentiment. They carelessly
generalize from the echo chambers of their safe districts to the
national electorate.

Polls show a majority of
the public opposed to shutting down the government to kill or amend
Obamacare. A majority of Americans also oppose its repeal or defunding.

Moreover, a significant portion of those who don't like the law say it doesn't go far enough.

But public opinion
doesn't matter at this point. The Constitution provides for an orderly
process of making laws and building agreement between chambers of
Congress and branches of government.

Blackmail, extortion, hostage-taking and brinksmanship are the tools of terrorists, not legislators.

Note to the editors of the Arizona Daily Star: this is what you should be publishing instead of the GOPropaganda delusional talking points that you published in the Saturday edition of your newspaper. You are reckless and irresponsible. I am certain that I am not the only one who deeply resents the godawful crap you choose to publish in the opinion pages of the Star. You should be embarrassed and ashamed. You are doing a great disservice to your readers.